


This Was How The Hales Fell

by Delta_Immortal



Series: Legends [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Blood, Bondage (nonsexual), Established Relationship, Gore, M/M, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Scott McCall is a good leader, Sequel, Violence, War!AU, character deaths (minor characters), horse traveling, medieval!au, prince!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:49:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8326774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delta_Immortal/pseuds/Delta_Immortal
Summary: Sequel to "This Was How Legends Were Made". Two years ago, during the Hale-Argent War, the Hales defeated the Argents. Two years ago, during the Hale-Argent War, Stiles and Derek met and fell into a doomed love between a slave and a prince. Two years ago,  during the Hale-Argent War, Peter Hale attempted to kill Laura Hale and steal away Stiles. Two years ago, during the Hale-Argent War, Derek Hale tore out Peter's throat and saved both Stiles and his sister Laura. After the war, two years ago, Laura gave the slaves their freedom, and finally Derek and Stiles were able to be equals. Though both became members of different countries and werewolf packs, their relationship blossomed. Now, Alpha werewolf packs to the north are threatening the borders of  both the Hale pack and the McCall pack. Now, Laura is dead and the Hale empire crumbling. Now, Stiles needs to rescue Derek from an unknown something before he loses Derek forever. If only Stiles, a weak human, didn't have to travel through what may be the start of an international werewolf war, things would be a lot easier.





	1. Prologue

There is a darkness around him.

Laura… Laura  _fell_. Derek had watched her fall, her body limp and without a throat. 

Laura, his sister, his Alpha, his Queen. She’d kept their werewolf pack and their lands strong along with Peter after their family had burned, kept their castles standing, helped keep the Argents out of their lands and away from killing wolves. They’d won the war with the Argents. And Laura after the war, freed all the slaves- those taken in the war and before. She’d freed Derek’s human love Stiles.

Maybe it the freedom was merely a bold move to declare independence from their uncle Peter, the same uncle who had tried to kill her. Maybe it was a move to assure their younger sister Cora, who had abandoned Laura after Cora’s lover- a slave- had been sent to war. Maybe she granted freedom to finish what their mother had started. Maybe she had a longer plan, one that wouldn’t end in economic downfall and one that wouldn’t in with riots and violence with the upturn of a political system. Maybe she did it for Derek, seeing how he pined over a slave he could never be in a relationship with. Maybe she did it for Stiles, as a reward for saving her life. 

It didn’t matter- she’d freed the slaves in the country and created a new civic system, and kept the country going smoothly for the past two years.

And now she is dead.

Derek breathes in, trying to remember what she taught him. Tries to remember how she took him aside, guided him through his mind. Even that association turns out to be too much, and he gasps, shuddering. 

Laura is dead. 

Derek feels the chains around his wrists, wanting to tuck his hands into his face and sob. He can’t… 

 _Trace it back._ Trace it back like she’d taught him.

They’d… she’d  expected a coup after the war. Their economy had only survived because of how she’d rented it out, but surviving wasn’t the same as thriving. Slaves freed meant people to be paid, homes to build. Domination subverted. It meant people who knew their previous owner’s worst out and and able to say it. Both a way of life an an economy, gone, and Laura had chosen it willingly.

Maybe Laura knew their family was doomed anyway, and she expected to die. Peter had tried to kill Laura…. Two years ago. With Cora’s human lover dead from Laura’s command and tensions still high between them, she’d never take the crown or lead the pack, despite how much she was still a part of it. Once Derek had fallen head over heels for Stiles- 

Stiles. Derek lets Laura’s training seep into him, now, if only for Stiles. So he never makes the mistake of letting his uncle’s words feed his anger again, so he never lets Peter encourage him to hurt Stiles again. Stiles doesn’t deserve anything but the best of Derek’s love. That’s why he had killed tracked down and killed Peter, ripping Peter’s throat out and becoming a second Alpha to his sister, taking Peter’s power for himself. He did it so Stiles wouldn’t be turned; so Stiles could remain human and safe. He’d protect Stiles. He tries his best now, even.

_What is true?_

Stiles. Stiles loves him. Derek loves Stiles. They send each other letters and see each other whenever their packs meet. And sometimes Derek sneaks away to visit Stiles. Since the McCall pack is still building their new country, Stiles needs to help stay and form it. Derek, coming from an established, though unstable, country, can steal away more easily. He loves to visit Stiles- loves to see his inner strength, loves to see how his mind works, loves to hear the jokes on his tongue. Stiles’s eyes are always bright and he’s always smart, and Derek loves his inner strength, wants to match it since he first noticed it. 

He had first noticed Stiles wandering the halls at night during the war. Stiles had been a slave. Slaves were to be in their quarters behind lock and key. Yet Derek hadn’t punished him. Instead, Derek had given a warning. 

_Go from there._

The slave without family, Derek had found, somehow adjusted to life after parental death better than Derek had after his own loss. Derek wanted to know more about that, about this slave that seemed to have himself together, but-

_Go on._

-But Stiles wouldn't ever be able to say no. Sometimes Stiles had looked miles away. Sometimes Peter would play with Stiles, making demands that he pour drinks or visit his room, and Derek had known Stiles couldn’t say no. If Stiles couldn’t say no to Peter, how could he say no to Derek?  

Derek’s hands fight against his chains, trying to find some weakness. He shivers, not wanting to remember what comes next. But he has to remember. The pain makes it real, helps him remember. Derek takes in a breath to steady himself from panicking, to remind himself of his anchor, to keep himself from transforming into his beta werewolf form. 

While he had taken the chance to love Stiles, inviting Stiles into his bed for the night of Sambra (the night of passion), most of the Argents had been freed from the dungeons in the castle. Derek had confided in Stiles about it, since they both had admitted to growing closer to each other. Laura had suspected Scott McCall, a new-bitten wolf slave from Beacon Hills, also Stiles’s childhood and closest friend. McCall had never fit into the slave society. He’d become quite a cult leader among the slaves, too- a hero and leader, one that threatened to form another pack unrelated to the Hales. The accusation had made sense to Laura and Derek, so they had called all the members of McCall’s cell in for briefing. 

Stiles had been a part of that cell. Derek had nearly puffed with pride. If McCall had been guilty, Stiles would love Derek, because Derek had  _saved_  Stiles from his treacherous friend. Under an Argent’s thumb, one would kill friends and family, even, Derek knew. Stiles would be so thankful Derek saved him from such a traitor.

But it  _hadn’t_ been Scott. Derek had been too blinded with love to listen to his gut; Scott wasn’t capable of such deceit. 

Stiles had been both capable and the traitor. And loyal.

Stiles had thrown himself in front of Scott and announced his secret task to everyone, and Derek hadn’t been able to breathe. Was Derek under the Argent’s hold  _again_? Had Kate sent Stiles here to seduce him? Laura had Stiles taken away, and Derek couldn’t see, couldn’t  _think_. 

And Peter had come, spoke words that only fanned the flames, and handed Derek the whip. There hadn’t been an anchor to hold Derek back, not when his fuel and anchor were the same: anger. He had lowered the whip again and again, seeing only Kate and not the man he loved.

Anger had slipped away as they hauled a bloody mess of a man from the whipping block to the prison. It had slipped away as the eyes of all those serving him- forced to serve him- knew Derek would no longer look out for them. In that moment, Derek had been no better than his uncle, bending the law where he saw fit.

And Stiles… his anger had nearly killed, maybe killed someone he loved, even if he had been hurt by him. Again.

Then Laura had found Derek alone in his sorrows, and…

_Keep going._

Then Laura brought Scott to see him, still a loyal slave, and Scott explained to them both. Stiles had betrayed- if one could call an unwilling slave disobeying an unwanted master betrayal- for the life of his father. Scott presented a found letter as proof. No one would rescue Stiles from slavery from this deed, but Kate Argent would stop poisoning the sheriff of Beacon Hills, Scott and Stiles’s home. The sheriff- Stiles’s father. 

Derek had known too well how that promise of Kate’s turned out. He’d known the outcome when they liberated Beacon Hills from the Argents. Those survivors had told him the sheriff passed away when Stiles had been captured by the Hales and sold into slavery; Kate Argent had burned the body herself, they told him. Stiles hadn’t known that when he freed Kate’s relatives from prison. 

Laura seemed to pale at this news, and Derek- 

Derek can’t remember. Even with Laura’s voice guiding him through the memories in that dark prison, the memories are hard to come by. Guilt. Fear. Love. Ruin.

 Derek had been afraid of himself. Afraid of what he could do. Afraid of how much more he could hurt Stiles, Stiles, who didn’t deserve that at all. Who had been no more a pawn than Derek had been. Derek had locked himself away in the old transformation shelters for anchorless werewolves, and found a new one. In his fugue-

_-Yes-_

He had wandered this place, catching the scent of Stiles underground. 

Familiarity now takes him. Derek isn’t in a prison. Derek is back in the old anchorless werewolf shelters. He breathes in the scents of his old past. Good. These places can be opened from the inside. There are tunnels. There are old runes, etched into the walls, that will keep him from dying. He is not wanted dead. 

Derek sniffs the walls, remembering his old fugue. He’d woken at times clawing the walls, smelling blood and infection and dirt and  _needing_  to get to Stiles. At times he couldn’t remember that  _he_  had caused Stiles’s pain, and other times, the worst of times, he  _did_. Laura caught him once, clawing his way through the dirt, and Derek looked up at her and begged to let him see Stiles, and then to not let him see Stiles- what if he kept hurting Stiles? 

Had that been when Laura changed? 

Had she looked at him and decided she wouldn’t lose him the same way she had lost Cora?

Laura had knelt beside him here, in one of these shelters, and told him she’d fix everything. He deserved to be happy, she had said. 

The chains rattle and Derek lets out a sob. He still doesn’t believe Laura ever pitied Stiles, or cared about him. She’d liked Stiles well enough, but… well, a slave was a slave to her. Laura cared more for their mother’s laws as an extension of their mother than for their own righteous principals. 

Maybe that had been Peter’s guidance. Just like how he guided assassins to Laura’s movements two years ago.

Laura is dead. 

Derek takes in a breath, remembering a few good things before returning to the memory of the tunnels. The memories are hard to pry open now, and he’s angry because they  _shouldn’t_  be. He curses Kali and blesses Laura and remembers Stiles’s shaky forgiveness. 

Remembering Stiles’s embrace comes easily. He remembers Stiles’s forgiveness, under the moon, right after Derek had rescued Stiles from Peter’s ploy. Before Derek had ripped Peter’s throat out and became an alpha.

And Laura had freed the slaves and Stiles. 

Stiles still loves him. After being freed, returning to Beacon Hills to help build McCall’s pack, Stiles had sent  Derek letters saying so without the actual words. They are equals now, seconds to their own packs, and Stiles loves him. They spent a summer apart before Derek came back to visit, and they’d continued the letters and visits and passionate encounters over these last two years. They’re separated now, but Derek never cared about that. Stiles loved him, loves him, and Stiles is alive and they help each other’s pack when they can. 

 _Stiles._  Derek breathes heavy again, ears twitching against some outside sound. Stiles will figure it out. Even in confinement Stiles could figure out Laura’s attempted assassin. He can figure out her true killer. 

Stiles is safe for now, and smart, and Scott is strong and brave. They’ll find Derek. They’ll be safe. Their lands will be safe and if they need to they can put a whole mountain ash barrier around it, for mountain ash keeps out wolves and Stiles can cover the whole territory, country, if he really tries, and Cora-

-And Cora- 

Cora. 

Derek feels tears and fights them back, hearing steps coming down the stairs. This is not a time to be weak. He tests out the restraints again on his hands, only now noticing the restraints on his feet as well. The trappings keep him restrained, as they were meant to. But the runes will keep him alive. Right now, that’s one of the hopes holding him together. 

Another is Stiles. 

Another is Cora.

Cora is safe with Stiles and Scott McCall and their pack. She’s officially a hostage. Unofficially, she’s training their army. 

The footsteps come closer, right outside the door. 

 _He_  hasn’t gotten Cora, too. She’s safe with Stiles. Both of them are safe under Alpha Scott McCall. 

Derek snarls at the scent as soon as the door opens, straining against his restraints. His eyes flash Alpha red and the man opens the door, clucking his tongue in a scolding manner, the same way he did when a 5-year-old Derek presented his mother Talia with worms as a gift.

“Now, now, nephew,” Laura’s killer said, and moves quickly to wrap his hands around Derek’s throat, squeezing. “I’m the one who should be angry. After all,  _you_  ripped out my throat, remember?” 

Derek snarls, but he knows he’s helpless. There’s no escaping these chains.

His sister Laura is certainly dead. 

His uncle Peter is somehow alive.


	2. Chapter 1

There are a few things Derek knows for certain. 

Laura is dead. 

Cora is alive, and with Scott McCall. Isaac is probably with Scott McCall, the messenger that sent Derek’s letter for help to Stiles and Scott. So Cora is safe, and most of his pack is safe, and the Alpha power probably made sure Cora knew what happened when Peter…

Derek can’t think about that right now. 

For certain, he is Peter’s prisoner. For certain, he is chained up in an old cage under the ground, one with just a sliver of a window to allow moonlight in. For certain, Peter doesn’t want him dead, no. Not when Peter could have killed him hour ago as he tore into Derek’s mind.

Peter’s laughter still hangs in Derek’s mind as Derek tries to calm down from the event. Peter’s separated him from his loyal guards. There are two alpha-tribe guardsmen. From what Derek can remember, the Alpha tribes followed Peter, new leader of the alpha pack. Derek and Laura were on the front, looking at supply lines, investigating the lone alpha rumors. A lone alpha who showed up when merchants were attacked. 

It had been Peter. Peter had shown up with a whole army, and two Alphas pinned Derek down when Peter tore out Laura’s neck. He laughed, wild, doing horrible things to her body that Derek was forced to relive later, through Peter’s claws. 

Peter loved the claws. He loved fucking with Derek’s memories, to see what was real and what wasn’t. 

Currently, Peter’s kept Derek surrounded in wolfsbane and mountain ash. Derek isn’t going to be able to get out of his cage just yet. And Peter’s been taunting him each time he takes Derek’s memory-- reliving scenes Derek would rather keep private, making Derek hate himself again and again, and then taking the memory away and leaving Derek with the feeling- 

Stiles. Derek breathes again.

Peter is trying to take Stiles away from Derek. Trying to replace the memories Derek holds dear, even the bad ones. He’s trying to erase Stiles from Derek’s mind, and Derek knows.

But Peter hadn’t counted on Laura’s cleverness. 

Laura taught Derek how to remember, even the bad things. How holding Stiles was sweeter now because Stiles had seen and lived the worst of Derek and forgiven him. How Derek knew he would do whatever it took to save Stiles, because Stiles had grown that important. How they were equals now. Stiles and Derek might not have been partners, but they were lovers, they were _something_. 

Peter couldn’t take that away. 

But what Peter could do…

Peter made him watch the whipping again today. Derek can’t picture Stiles’s back now, two years after the incident, and Peter stands behind him in Derek’s mind, drinking in all the anger he’d suggested to Derek in the first place. 

Derek hates to remember. But he needs to— like Laura taught him. If he doesn’t, Peter will take the memory and probably force Derek to relive it again, but outside of his mind. He could see Peter doing that— waging war on the McCall pack, taking Stiles as a second, and working Derek up again. 

Peter would hand Derek the whip, and Derek wouldn’t know. Derek can’t allow for that to happen again. He won’t let Stiles be hurt again, not through his incompetence this time. He’ll kill himself if he has to keep Stiles safe.

The first time… Derek thinks back through his anger at Peter. Thinks back to two years ago, when the Argent war was on. By the time Laura and Derek found out who released the Argents, Stiles had earned Derek’s affection. He was a sweet, soft spot in Derek’s heart. 

The ache is familiar. Good. 

Derek remembers seeing Stiles for the first time, in the hallway at night. Stiles spoke back to him. Here was a servant, slave, well in over his head trying to do his best, a firm determination in his eyes. Stiles had been wronged, and Derek knew it, Stiles knew it, but Stiles was going to fight against it however he could, with is words, with his actions. 

Derek didn’t have that fire. He craved it. 

And when Laura made the accusations against McCall for letting the Argent prisoners escape, Stiles stepped up, ready to defend his friend. Derek felt his heart sink. Stiles’s death would be preferable to all, as he was of little importance to anyone but Derek. Stiles admitted to the crime.

But there was no lie. 

Derek’s heart stopped. His vision went red. 

Shock. 

Stiles was the Argent Spy. The mole. The one who’d freed the Argents in the basement, staying behind so no one would suspect a thing. Laura paused, probably trying to figure out the pieces, but they had made a scene. They were in public, and Peter kept pushing for punishment. Stiles was dragged away, and Derek only knew he’d been tricked by Kate again. Stiles could have taken the last of his family from Derek. Just like Kate did.

Stiles was no different from Kate, using Derek for his own purposes. Stiles seduced him in the hallway so Derek wouldn’t notice the Argents had escaped. He’d used the holy festival, Sambra, and tricked his way into Derek’s bed, made Derek think Derek was the instigator. Derek was a fool. 

Peter found him before Laura. Punish him, Peter had said. Make sure Kate knows exactly what’s coming to her. He’s her willing agent, why else would he have come here? She lived in his home. Framing you and sending her agents after you— that’s not to be borne, Derek. Make her pay. Use your anger and deliver justice. 

Derek did. 

He’d make her pay, let Kate know exactly what would happen to her agents. Derek practiced whipping for hours beforehand.

Laura came, inquiring after Stiles’s father, saying the werewolf slave McCall they’d interviewed before was saying something about being coerced, but Derek claimed to know better than Laura on this. Once again he’d fallen in love with someone who took advantage of that status. Who’d made a fool of him. Derek knew his luck, and he gripped that whip with fevered abandon as he saw Kate and not Stiles on the wooden block. 

Like all things, Laura had known better.

It was only after he smelt the blood, his wolf whining, Laura’s alpha presence commanding him to stop, that he looked down at an unmoving, unresponsive mass of flesh. 

“She promised,” he remembered the words as Stiles had cried to him about his father. Derek repeated them in his mind again and again as his brain started to work in overtime; somehow, the words became, “he promised” and “you promised”, and his anchor of anger started shattering. 

Maybe she’d used Stiles the way she’d used Derek.

In the now, Derek whines. It still hurts. But it’s good; this is what Peter tried to take from him. He _must_ remember, he must suffer so he can remember Stiles, remember never to make the same mistake. He can remember Stiles in his bed, one of the last nights Stiles was a slave, whispering forgiveness in their bed when they didn’t know what would happen next, when they didn’t know if McCall and his people would be an ally or an enemy to the Hales. 

It hurts, but he still loves Stiles, and that makes everything hurt more and less. 

In the memory, things were fuzzy, but not because of Peter. Because of panic. Because of knowing Stiles was almost dead. 

Derek hid in his room, under the bed, covered in blankets. The thought that Stiles was a willing agent angered him; but even more terrifying was the thought that Stiles had been used, like Derek had been, and Derek had killed him the way Kate had made Derek kill his parents. He transformed into a wolf, drug his blankets underneath the bed, and Laura found him that way. 

“Oh, Derek,” she uttered, and Derek knew she was thinking of his anger, how he used it to drive himself forward. He whined. “Did you just figure it out now?” She asked, and he whined again, coming out of the bed to lick her face. 

And he had. 

Derek feels tears even now at his eyes, shame that it took him too long to piece together what Stiles had done and why. That he was a mess afterwards, realizing how much in the wrong he was, locking himself away. 

And Peter… 

Peter had forced him to relive the memory, forced him to watch himself beat Stiles again, as he screamed at himself to stop. 

Peter laughed and took away the memory, leaving the self-hatred, the anger at himself. And then he left, and Derek was here, now, in the same chamber he’d sealed himself in after the event, as penance for his anger. The memory is terrible. He doesn’t want to relive it. 

But he has to have it. He deserves it. So he remembers looking at Stiles’s back, when Stiles was naked and laughing alongside him, remembering his sorrows at the scars, his grief at the wounds. He makes himself think back to why those emotions appeared, remembering snippets and details, working through the memory backwards through all the impressions it left behind. 

This one will be easy to keep- this one is tied into all his dealings with Stiles now, every time he sees his beautiful Stiles who laughs and moves with pure energy. Whose mouth quips and snarks and keeps Derek smiling. 

When Peter starts taking the small memories, when those emotions don’t come back to him, Derek doesn’t know what he would do. 

Until then, he has to keep faith that Stiles will come for him. 

 

***

 

Derek dreams of foxes. He dreams of Stiles running with the foxes, a lone wolf among them. They are in a circle, a pack, and Stiles is arguing against the wolf and the foxes, and more wolves are in the shadows. The wolves howl. 

Derek howls at them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not how I planned the story to be (I planned it to be through Stiles again), but this is how it's happening. The story through Derek is easier to write, is shorter, and hopefully, will be much faster in updates. Grad school is kicking my butt, and I haven't even managed to write what I need for that, either-- depression and anxiety are two monsters I'm wrestling with to figure out how best to keep writing. I have not given up on this fic, and I will not, and I will finish it. With Derek's POV, my goal is shorter chapters mean more constant updates (like... weekly), along with seeing Derek's POV from Legends in a whole new way. 
> 
> I apologize again for my hiatus.

**Author's Note:**

> All tags will be updated and added as the story goes on- some surprises I would like to not spoil.


End file.
